SK grad Hammel to start ALDS Game 1 for Orioles

It’s been nearly a month since he
started a game and a lot longer than that since he’s won a game,
but Jason Hammel, a 2000 graduate of South Kitsap, will start Game
1 of the American League Divisional Series against the New York
Yankees on Sunday. Here’s the
Baltimore Sun story about manager Buck Showalter’s
choice.Hammel was Baltimore’s best pitcher during the first half of
the season and has been battling a knee injury the last three
months.

Hammel has made one career postseason start, in 2009 for the
Colorado Rockies

Sunday’s game starts at 3:15 p.m. and
will be televised by TBS.

The only other pitcher from Kitsap
County to start an MLB postseason game? Aaron Sele, the former
North Kitsap star. Sele
was 0-6 as a stater in the postseason with four of the losses
coming while he was with the Mariners. Five of those loses were
against the Yankees, two when he was with Texas and four times
while he was with the Mariners.

Daly’s meltdown

Did you see that John Daly was up to
his old tricks on the PGA Tour? Daly opened the Justin Timberlake
Shriners Hospitals for Children Open with a 69-63. Saturday he
was 6-over after 3 holes and finished with a 15-over 86. Yep,
from 63 to 86 in a day and he finished with two pars and a birdie
on his final three holes. It’s not his highest score on tour. That
would the 89 he shot in the second round of the 2008 British Open.
Yeah, I know. a lot of us would take a 86 or 89 on a regular basis,
but when Daly has meltdowns like this, it’s news. Especially when
it happens in Las Vegas.

Kitsap’s local pro, Troy Kelly, shot
his second straight 1-under 70, which moved him from a tie for 61st
to a tie for 41st heading into the final day.

Quick hits

Just look over at the TV in time to
see Keith Price throw a pick that an Oregon player took to the
house for a touchdown. Since Week 1, Kieth Price hasn’t looked like
the same player that quarterbacked the Huskies a year ago. He’s
still got three quarters to go and he never seems rattled. Let’s
see how he bounces back.

Was having a discussion earlier in the
week about Pac-12 football. Two guys were trying to convince me
that the Pac-12 was the second-best football conference in the
country behind the SEC. They argued that the Pac-12 was better than
the Big 10 and Big 12. The Pac-12 had five teams in the Top 25, but
I just didn’t see a lot of quality. Oregon and USC are legit. UCLA?
Oregon State? Washington? C’mon. I see a bright, bright future for
the conference on the west coast, but it’s not there just yet.

Who would have ever thought that the
NFL West would be the league’s version of the Black and Blue
division. The Seahawks, Cardinals, 49ers and Rams are all playing
some seriously nasty defensive football? Or do those defenses just
seem better because all of those teams, with the exception of the
49ers, have some really bad offenses and they’ve all played at
least two of their conference foes. And the 49ers offense seems to
have regressed this year.

Who do I think will wind up in the
World Series? Nationals and Orioles.

Who do I want to get to the World
Series? Giants and A’s. Giants for personal reasons, which has
something to do with a buddy of mine making an unintentional wager
on the Giants. We made fun of him at the time, but it just
might turn out.